


everything golden dies

by behradtarazi



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Hurt Jace Wayland, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, It's not pleasant, Jace Wayland Needs A Hug, Mostly Canon Compliant, Read at Your Own Risk, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, basically. i'm talking about his trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:07:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23545132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behradtarazi/pseuds/behradtarazi
Summary: Jace made Izzy and Alec promises, once.He swore to them that he wouldn’t hurt himself, that he wouldn’t do something that he couldn’t take back, that he would come to them when he needed help.They’re not easy promises to keep.-Jace is at the verge of collapse.
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Jace Wayland, Clary Fray/Jace Wayland, Imogen Herondale & Jace Wayland, Isabelle Lightwood & Jace Wayland, Lilith & Jace Wayland, Valentine Morgenstern & Jace Wayland
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	everything golden dies

Jace made Izzy and Alec promises, once.

He swore to them that he wouldn’t hurt himself, that he wouldn’t do something that he couldn’t take back, that he would come to them when he needed help.

They’re not easy promises to keep.

They’re not easy promises to keep, because sometimes - sometimes Jace can’t breathe, late at night. He’s awake and laying there and Clary is by his side which _should be enough_ , should be enough to calm him down, but he can’t _breathe_ , stuck reliving whatever nightmare, whatever memory he’s haunted with this time. Sometimes he dreams of killing Clary. All the different ways he’d done it, in his mind, seraph blade slicing through her heart, easy as that. Easy as that. Those are the nights he leaves. Careful not to wake her, he slips out from under the covers, gets his clothes and his knife ( _Angel, is there blood on it? Fuck, no, not Clary-_ ) and heads down to the training rooms, practices until everyone else starts to wake up, breaks punching bags because he said he wouldn’t break himself.

The extra training shows. Jace has always been the best fighter, fastest, fiercest, strongest, but now it’s even clearer. It would be easy, letting himself start to believe in the myth. Start to think that the way people whisper _Herondale_ actually _means_ something. To start to believe that he might be _good._

 _That’s sweet,_ croons the specter of Lilith in his mind, as she presses replay and forces him to watch himself kill his own grandmother, again and again and _again._ He can’t forget what he did. Can’t move past it. She was his _blood_ , she gave him his family name, his real one, something steady and real to hold on to, and how had he repaid her? How had he fucking repaid her? With a seraph blade. The only way Valentine had ever taught him.

Lilith's voice is hauntingly clear. Every time he hears it, all it does is make him want to die quicker, but what he wants doesn’t mean a thing. Valentine taught him that. She just made the lesson clearer. Good soldiers follow orders. _You’d do it all again for me, wouldn’t you?_ He likes to think he wouldn’t. If he had a choice, he wouldn’t. His memories show him doing it anyways, screaming and fighting and doing it anyways, and all he can say is _Yes._

He can’t do this anymore.

Not won’t. _Can’t._

If he could, he would carry on the way he always has, head held high, bleeding but unbroken. He’s not sure he’s unbroken, though. Maybe something snapped in him. He came back, but he came back wrong. He looks at Alec and only remembers hitting him until he stops, looks at Izzy and sees a battlemap of weaknesses, looks at Clary and - well. We know. We know. Blood. So much blood. He plays piano, gets a note wrong, can feel the phantom pain of his finger _snapping_ . There’s a shock of blonde hair in a crowd, and his mind screams _Jonathan_ . Heels click on cool tile, and he feels the ghost of Lilith’s kiss. And Valentine...Valentine is everywhere, in every scar lining Jace’s back, every punch he throws. Jace is the combat instructor now, teaches a Shadowhunter a new kick, and remembers the way Valentine hit him until he learned how to hit back _harder_.

Not a good man, but a perfect soldier. That was the ideal, Jace knows. The goal.

And it worked. It worked. He wishes it didn’t, but on his best nights he thinks it worked. On his worst nights, he _knows_ it did. There’s a special kind of pain in knowing your own monstrosity. It’s familiar to him by now, feels like home, back from the good old days when he thought he had demonic blood coursing through his veins. The knowledge that he's got angelic instead only seems to add a cruel irony to it - he's the farthest fucking thing from holy.

Once, Valentine told him that _to love is to destroy, and to be loved is to be the one destroyed_ , and he was right. He was right, he had to be, because look at Jace now: hollow and hurting and _broken_ , the wreckage a testament to the things he did for love. The things he did _to himself_ for love, because some of the scars lining his body might not be from any enemy other than him, might not be from any battle other than the one he is losing with himself. But that is a secret he will take to his grave. That is something he could never tell Izzy or Alec or Clary. How the fuck could he make them understand?

Maybe he’s afraid. Afraid of their understanding. Afraid of being looked at with pity and grief, of shattering the illusion of strength, when Raziel knows that’s the only thing that’s keeping his head above the water. Afraid of seeing how much more he can break under love. He’s not even sure that he _could_ break more, that there’s anything left in him to shatter, but he doesn’t want to find out, not when he’s already fighting off ghosts around every corner, already at the mercy of his mind.

He is so tired.

He was created to fight, molded and shaped into the perfect warrior, the perfect killer, unstoppable. But he feels like he’s moving through a fog, the weight of the sky on his shoulders too heavy to handle, his seraph blade clumsy in his hands. Sometimes, on missions, he notices a chance for sacrifice, hears Lilith’s amused words: _You would make a lovely martyr._ At least then, he could die with some semblance of glory. At least then, he could die like a Herondale.

The family ring gleams in the light, the chain it is on cold against his skin, tight. He doesn’t deserve to have it, doesn’t deserve the legacy, the power. He doesn’t deserve _any of this._ Not the New York Institute, not Clary, not the Lightwoods. Maybe it would be better if he leaves before he hurts them, too. Before someone else ends up like Imogen: loved, dead, undeserving.

 _Promises be damned._ The words are glass in his throat. It’s hard not to choke on the blood. 

He puts in a request to be transferred anyways. The London Institute is happy to have him. 


End file.
